Hollow
by shallowswan
Summary: What if Harry had been to late to save Sirius? AU


_**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the characters sadly. _

_**Note: **This was a chapter for a chaptered AU fiction I was working on focusing on what had happened if Sirius had lost his soul, and was discovered and turned completly evil by Voldemort. It was a good idea but I lost the time and inspiration for it. I do however like how this scene came out so I descided to convert it to a gloomy one-shot. Try to enjoy:P_

He sat defeated in Professor Flitwick's office, cradling his head in his hands. _This is Professor Flitwick's office...crickey, me and the gang once locked Snivellus in here for two whole hours while continually setting off Dung Bombs…and right on that desk I made love to…oh Merlin I can't even remember that chick's name! And made love? That's an interesting way for describing shagged like animals! That's all I ever did with my life, pleasure myself with women and cause mayhem…I didn't know anything else;__didn't want it. Now I am going to die without ever having been in love…without knowing a single moment of just tenderness…of rest. Nobody is going to mourn my passing…shit, the world is going sing and rejoice in my death…_

A single tear slipped down Sirius' skeletal cheeks, and he shivered a bit, dragging his hands down his face. _I am_ _definitely not the stud I was the last time I walked though these doors. I am starved, I am ghastly, I am hideous,__but I am Sirius;__I know who I am now. Odd__ it took twelve years of Azkaban to truly understand that. I am strong. I've never stopped fighting. Well,__up until now. I've worked so hard, forced myself to open my eyes, to survive on the moldy bread and putrid water of Azkaban, I've pushed on no matter how terribly my paws ached in my dog form, I survived one more day, driven by hate, and love…and now it's come down to this. Down to utter failure. I let Peter slip through my fingers, along with my vengeance, my freedom, my god son and now my soul. _

_My soul…that was what tormented me every single moment in Azkaban, it was my memory, my frail hopes, my dreams, as well as the source of my anger, the fuel that opened my eyes for twelve torturous years, it gave me the whole reason I am here at Hogwarts. To protect Harry. _

The door opened and he watched helplessly as Fudge entered the room, a Dementor towering behind him. The demon's massive, wraith - like form was trembling as if in excitement, just the way they did whenever they expected a death in Azkaban.

"Sirius Black" began Fudge with a waver in his voice, "you have been charged with the murder of twelve Muggles and one Wizard, of conspiring with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and thus youwere sentenced to life in Azkaban. Since the time you've done the unthinkable and managed to escape you been charged as well with breaking and entering Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as well as threatening and endangering the lives of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley, Remus Lupin and Severus Snape. For these crimes, on this day June 16, 1994 you have been sentenced…"

Sirius felt the icy tears tearing down his cheeks and heard no more. He felt his despair rising within him and blinked frantically, trying to clear the fog from his eyes. He heard a voice, it was so terrified, and it was broken. It made his heart ache with pain, it began to grow louder, and he realized it was his own voice, his own strangled and defeated cry.

Sirius stood at James and Lily's home…and last home. The dark mark glittering in the sky above gave evidence to that. Sirius had never felt such fear as he felt when he did when he arrived at James' and Lily's and saw their door wide open, with Hagrid standing outside, holding Harry in his arms. Herushed inside…and tripped over the body of his best friend, his confidante, and the man responsible for the happiest moments of his life, James Potter. Sirius' sobs choked in his throat as he took in the sight of James sprawled in the door way, his eyes opened, forever frozen in a horrified expression, his mouth wide, as if beginning to cry his beloved wife's name. Shaking, Sirius tore up the stairs "LILY! LILY ANSWER ME!" He reached the top of the stairs and lets out another horrified gasp. The door to Harry's room had been blown to bits, and near Harry's crib she lay, her dark red hair spread out across her face, but she looked peaceful, her eyes closed as if she were merely sleeping. At the foot of the crib lay a pile of black robes that were faintly smoking. Sirius didn't even begin to take in the meaning of this oddity, he just turned and stormed out of the room, and out the house. He crossed the lawn, back to his motorcycle and collapsed against it, howling with pain andconvulsing with sobs that, for once were not worth hiding.

Sirius had cried as an adult before, but they were merely a few tears he later blatantly denied even if he had every reason to shed them. The Order of the Phoenix was emotionally ruthless, you become close to everyone so fast, only to have him or her hexed to bits before your eyes. But he'd never broken down as thoroughly as now. His best friend, the one of the few people he'd ever considered family,was dead. The love of James' life, sweet, kindhearted Lily who has put up with Sirius' constant marauding and pranks with a smile, was dead. Their son, whose life had barley begun, was orphaned.

But even as the pain wracked him he clenched his hands into a fist, pulling them tighter and tighter until his nails began to bite into his palm, and even then he clinched tighter savoring the pain in midst of the sorrow. Peter. Peter has betrayed him. Peter had sold Lily and James and Harry to Voldemort. Peter had killed them. Now Sirius had to kill Peter in turn. Now he would repay Peter for his betrayal.

Hagrid moved over to his side and lay his huge hand on his shoulder, then gathered him into a rough one-armed hug. Hagrid was crying as well- great rain sized teardrops splashed down on Sirius' leather jacket. "It's goin' ter be okay, Sirius, I promice." Hagrid said even as he cried.

Sirius in turn wrapped his arms around Hagrid as best he could and they let each other cry. Sirius bent forward and kissed Harry's tiny forehead, and murmured, "I am sorry Harry, God, I am so, so sorry." _I killed Lily and James. I made Harry an orphan. All because I trusted that pounce Peter! All because I thought that would be the perfect deception._They separated; Sirius stepped back from his enormous friend and held out his hands, "Hagrid" he pleaded, blinking back the tears rapidly, "give Harry to me. I'm his Godfather, I'll take care of him."

Hagrid's face twitched, another gigantic tear rolled down his face, "No, I've got me orders from Dumbledore, he's ter go straight ter his aunt and uncle's."

Sirius flinched with the pure horror of the revelation and even laughed, suspecting that this had been some terrible joke. After all,Hagrid never hada great sense of humor, but the giant merely stood there, as solemn face as ever, "What? They're…they're sodding Muggles! He doesn't belong with them, away from his people! You've never met these Muggles…they're terrible…they might be one of those horrible Muggles that lock, starve and beat a child without a second thought! I am more blood related to him than those filthy excuses for human beings will ever be!"

"No can do…"

Sirius made a frustrated noise in the back of his throatand gripped Hagrid's enormous hand, his eyes blazing with anger, "You and I both know it. He's better off with me! I am his Godfather, I was the one Lily and James entrusted him to, now I am all he's got left in this world. And further more, I love him, he belongs with ME!"

"Not accordin' ter Dumbledore…"

"Hagrid please!"

"No," Hagrid said forcefully

He sighed dejectedly, and looked down at Harry. Even so young he looked so much like James, save for his wide, terrified eyes that where emerald just like his mother's, and now the bloody mark upon his forehead. He grasped Harry's tiny hand; Harry opened his mouth and let out a small cry. Sirius leaned forward and kissed Harry on the cheek allowing the tears to fall down on his face even as Harry continued to scream. "Goodbye Harry. I am so sorry." He looked up at his friend, feeling the rage festering within him. With Sirius' hypersensitive hearing, a distinctive advantage of being an Animagi, he heard the astounded voices of Muggles approaching the scene. "Take my bike, Hagrid, it will get him to his aunt and uncles before anymore danger can find him. I won't be needing it anymore." _And I won't, not where I am going. And if I've any chance of escaping the fate that vengeance is going to bring me than that bike won't help me._

The cold jolted Sirius back into consciousness as it crept down into his heart freezing it, he heard himself moaning pitifully, pleading, in fact, to Fudge "I am innocent…I am innocent, please believe me…"

As he opened his eyes straining to see through the fog that seemed to cloud his vision, but he saw that he was alone in the room, save for a single Dementor hovering directly in front of him.

"No…no!" he protested, his bones felt as if there were about to snap as he bolted upwards, and desperately he shoved a fist into the demons cloaked form, the cold ran all the way up his shoulder, sank down to the marrow of his bones and he screamed with the pain of it.

But it worked, at least for the moment. The demon did fall back. Desperately Sirius began to run, stumbling with the pain wracking his body, but he managed to keep at it, searching for something, anything he might use as a weapon, his brain unable to remember the fact that these creatures _were_ death, that they thrived on it, how could you kill what was death itself? The demon moved swiftly, hovering dramatically towards him, drawing deeper and deeper breaths, ice was starting to from in sheets across the floor and the walls. Sirius began throwing everything he could, books, quills, rolls of parchment, paper weights at the demon, trying to drive it back, before his foot slipped on the ice and he struck the floor hard enough to see stars and sparkles obscuring his already clouded vision. The Dementor was directly above him.

He was howling with sobs when his vision returned, roused by the clammy hand that had fastened around his neck. He saw the Dementor raise a rotting hand and push back its tattered hood. It revealed an elongated gray head, scaly and slimy as if it had been rotting underwater, its eye sockets where scabbed over with thin, scaled skin, most of the head was nothing but a gapping hole filled with unfathomable darkness. The frozen hand tightened around his neck and as if he weighed nothing pulled him upward, clear off his feet and raised him to its awning jaws. Before Sirius even had the chance to scream, to struggle and kick, the gapping mouth was clamped upon his.

He fought it as best he could, still struggling against the demon's powerful grasp, compressing his mouth shut as hard as he possibly could, but the hand around his throat was cutting off his windpipe, it wasn't long before it seemed as if ever cell within his body was aching for oxygen. Then the Dementor took in a long, drawn out breath, and it seemed that what little air he had left in his lungs was sucked away. He was left with no choice but to open his mouth and gasp vainly for oxygen. In response the demon loosed its grip about his throat just enough to allow him to breath. Sirius could taste the death within the demons mouth, the only air he found within the demon left him his limbs feeling heavy, and numb. The Dementor pulled him tighter, hooked its other putrid claw behind his head, embracing him like some horrific lover, taking another long, sucking breath.

Mind numbing cold fell over his whole body; it felt as if his very own skin was splitting and he could feel the blood freezing in his veins. His limbs felt so heavy, and his eyes rolled back into his head, then throughout the fatal cold he felt a spark of warmth deep within his chest.

He felt it began to radiate brighter within his center, could feel its heat staving off the cold. It was meant to keep him alive; it was the fire that feed the spark of life itself, kept it from being hollow and empty. This was what had kept him alive for all those horrible years when the world would have rather him dead. He's never felt the intensity of its power like he had now. It was his soul.

It was ageless, boundless. It was formed from the Universe, from the very power of the Gods and Goddesses themselves. These Higher Powers had gifted it to every living thing on the earth, everything from trees to even the rocks possessed some sort of life, and to fill this life with color they gave it a soul. Every soul had a yearning to live life to its fullest, it thirsted for knowledge and above all else it yearned to find its mate, it's Twin Flame. Every soul had a twin, every soul had begun as one being until they were split by the Gods, and even now Sirius could feel the rapturous joy of when his own soul had been whole, and the wracking torture of when it had been split.

The demon drew in another long rattling breath but Sirius barely acknowledged it, rather he felt only warmth of his soul as it began to let loose a floodgate of the memories of his past lives and the lessons he'd learned. He saw his first frail forms of life as single cell organisms, than as insects, and progressed finally into the incarnation of a sparrow, then a mouse, a hawk, a wolf, several lifetimes as a dog, even a dragon, and at last his first human life as a mere boy in Greece who'd died young like most children in that age. But at last in this incarnation he found his Twin Flame, another sickly orphaned girl in a village. All they shared in this life were games of tag in the butterfly infested fields and a clumsy "accidental" kiss, but it was the start of something wonderful.

He saw flashes of his many other lives, a soothsayer in Rome, a clansman in Scotland, a Druid, a few more lives as an animal, an Indian Shaman. In all his human lives he would find his way back to magic, and sometimes to the warmth of his Twin's arms. For a moment the joy held within the memory of this reunion with his Twin was dulled, his soul revealed that it was too late for him and his Twin now. He'd known her in this life, but in this incarnation she'd been a mere crush back at Hogwarts in his youth before he's summoned to courage to speak to girls. She was dead now, a victim of a highly dangerous necromancer.

But the flood of memories pushed away the sadness of the revelation, and he basked in the warmth, in the love, the knowledge, victory and peace of perhaps a billon years of life. Even the pain and sadness seemed somehow so beautiful to him. Every emotion welled within his psyche bled together into the warmth of his soul, and every memory joined this warmth creating something of such beauty he could not keep the tears from springing in his eyes.

And then the forgotten demon took another deep sucking breath and ripped it all away. Panic seized his every muscle, anguish fired in every nerve, and for a slight moment he could feel the radiant mass of warmth being torn from the center of his chest and sucked out through his mouth.

The raw pain of the wound was more agonizing than anything Sirius had ever felt in any of his lives. It felt as if the demon had plunged a knife into his heart, twisted it in the wound and yanked it free…and yet he still lived. He could feel the abysmal emptiness were the warmth had been, he could feel he was bleeding within even though no blood had been physically let. A shrill scream rose than died on his lips, a river of tears fell from his eyes but died immediately as the memory of emotions such as pain and sadness faded away. And even if the emotions were there he somehow knew that nothing could have expressed whatever it was he was feeling now.

The cold that had plagued him at the beginning of the ordeal came rushing back and filled the hollow core, numbing away the pain, leaving no trace of it…or anything else within his ravaged body. Not only did the cold fill the hollow hole, but also it penetrated his every fiber, every cell, and every atom.

The black thing released him. He felt himself fall onto the floor; felt pain flare throughout his body but it faded quickly leaving him shivering with cold, the tears running dry on his pallid face, his eyes staring as if transfixed by nothing.

_Who I am I? Where I am I? I am I dead?_

He didn't hear the pounding at the window.

He never saw Harry mounted on the hippogriff, scratching and beating at the window, nor did he hear his keening cry, "NOOO!"


End file.
